Rocker Phil Rudd has lodged an appeal against his eight month home detention sentence.

The 61-year-old former AC/DC drummer was sentenced in Tauranga on Thursday after earlier pleading guilty to charges of threatening to kill and possession of methamphetamine and cannabis.

A bid to gain a discharge without conviction failed and Rudd was ordered to stay at his waterfront Harbour Drive home where he was to be electronically monitored 24 hours a day.

Judge Thomas Ingram also ordered the former drummer not to take any drugs that were not prescribed to him.

His lawyer Craig Tuck confirmed to Radio NZ an appeal had been lodged with the High Court.

In sentencing, the court heard Rudd's actions were the result of methamphetamine psychosis and he was addicted to the drug.

Affidavits to the court said Rudd would lose tens of millions of dollars if he was convicted because he couldn't tour to certain countries with AC/DC.

Judge Ingram said there was no evidence he had an offer from the band and he was not convinced that Rudd's drumming was integral to the AC/DC sound.

"Queen replaced Freddie Mercury," said Judge Ingram.

It was revealed in November last year that Rudd had been arrested and charged with drugs offences and attempting to procure a murder, a charge that was dropped 24 hours later.

In April, when Rudd pleaded guilty, the court heard he'd made a call to an associate asking him to "take out" a former security guard turned personal assistant after becoming angry when his solo album launch in August last year flopped.

He fired a number of employees, including his victim.

On September 25 at 8.12pm Rudd phoned an associate in Australia saying he wanted the victim "taken out", and "taken care of because they were a bunch of f***en c****.

Rudd then offered the associate $200,000, one of his cars, a motorbike or a house, which the associate believed was payment for the request.

The next day at 8.27am, Rudd called the victim and asked if he was "on today", the victim said yes at which point Rudd said "I'm going to come over and kill you".

Rudd made two further calls to the same victim, who hung up after realising it was Rudd.

Police then obtained a warrant to search Rudd's Bureta home in Tauranga on November 6.

When police arrived Rudd was in the lounge and attempted to conceal a container of crumbs, which after testing was found to be 6gms of cannabis.

Rudd then pulled out a bag of cannabis from the couch, the court was told.

ESR testing found the bag contained a further 20.2gms of cannabis.

When police arrived at the home Rudd was wearing jeans and no shirt. In his front jeans pocket police discovered a white powder, which turned out to be 0.273gms of methamphetamine.

Police searched the home where they found 0.205g of methamphetamine in the master bedroom, 47.2gms of cannabis in the hallway cupboard, and a further 17.9gms of cannabis in the pool room bedroom.

A total of 0.478gms of methamphetamine and 91gms of cannabis was found.

Previously Rudd said he'd seen the error of his ways and wished he was touring with AC/DC again.